CHAPTER 262: DIRGE OF THE DRUIDS

Fist-sized spores burst in mid-air as they descended from the cap of the towering mushroom. Countless fine particles rained down, blanketing the forest in a blizzard—though the temperature had hardly dropped nearly low enough for snow.

The mycelial carpet on the ground writhed and surged. A mass of fungal tendrils squirmed across the thick, white velvet-like layer, rushing toward Wang Yu like a foaming wave. The entire fungal bed undulated like a white sea, rolling with uncanny momentum.

Among the churning tide of spores and filaments, the mushroom folk, their bodies wholly claimed by the spreading mycelium, charged forward, brandishing crude weapons as they launched a wild assault on Wang Yu.

"Sif, gather around!"

Wang Yu gestured to the tall tree beside him, signaling for the elven ranger perched above to descend. Even at her height, the sudden storm posed a threat. Inhaling those invasive spores could be very dangerous indeed.

Sif dropped from the tree, landing lightly on Wang Yu's shoulder with practiced ease. Neither Avia nor Sif's weight was of concern to him.

As he glanced toward the advancing wave of enemies, Wang Yu remained calm. Half a year ago, he might have considered retreating before such overwhelming numbers. Now, that would no longer be necessary.

The pieces of his starsteel blade shot out from his hand, which was engulfed in eerie green Cursed Fire. Blood surged from his veins, igniting with life, driven by his Blood Tempest.

The searing blood blazed even more fiercely as Wang Yu focused his will and concentrated it into a fireball that swelled in his palm.

He slammed the flame into the ground. Fuelded by the Chariot, the fire erupted in a tidal wave and expanded outward. At the same time, Avia's conjured fireball rose into the air and exploded overhead in a brilliant flare.

The firestorm surged forward. The dense fungal mat, woven from enchanted filaments, proved absurdly flammable. Before it could secrete corrosive fluids on Wang Yu, it was already aflame and quickly being devoured by his Cursed Fire-infused blood.

Avia continued to launch a rain of fire from high above. Scarlet flames mixed with the snow-like spores in a hellish tempest.

Within moments, the rain of spores had turned blood-red, then black. Fire surged skyward, consuming the storm in mere seconds. Ash replaced snow, drifting like soot in the burning air.

The surrounding trees fared no better. Flame and heat turned the fungal carpet and its spores to cinders—and the trees, along with the mushroom folk darting among them, were caught in the same conflagration.

Flames sheared through their trunks; leaves dissolved under fiery rain. One by one, the burning trees collapsed, crashing to the ground with earth-shaking force.

And with that brief inferno, the forest was scoured clean. When the flames faded, the white carpet of fungi and spores was no more. All that remained was a single colossal mushroom, its stalk slightly yellowed but rooted firmly in place—everything else had been reduced to a charred ruin.

From the cracked earth came a groan. Roots split and timber creaked. Then, the ancestral spirit of the mushroom folk tore its roots free and rose to its feet.

Massive legs, thick as ancient tree trunks, slammed to the earth. The ground trembled under its titanic weight. Its torso split open and powerful arms sprouted forth, rippling with unnatural strength.

Wang Yu frowned at the sight of this walking mushroom. Something about it struck him with eerie familiarity. He instinctively recoiled from the idea of engaging it directly.

"Fall back. There's no need to fight this thing head-on unless we have to. It's far too slow to catch us if we decide to retreat."

Even as he spoke, Wang Yu eyed the lumbering giant. Its pace was sluggish. He could outpace it easily—but then he froze.

Words materialized within his vision, halting his retreat as he fixed his gaze upon the core of the creature's torso.

[High concentration of natural magic detected. Estimated strength: advanced druid.]

"...A druid? You've got to be kidding me. That thing's a druid?" Wang Yu muttered, utterly baffled. "Since when can druids turn into giant mushrooms? I thought the weirdest they got was shifting into griffins, owlbears, or maybe a green dragon!"

Perfect Fractal's revelation left him reeling. Instead of fleeing, Wang Yu matched the mushroom giant's pace, running backward while keeping his eyes locked on the creature.

"I'm going to overload the fractal spell. The structure won't hold, but right before it collapses, the ‘magnification' should hit its peak. With your grand knight physique, Wang Yu, you should be able to handle the influx of data."

Avia knew exactly what he needed. Before he could ask, she was already preparing the spell.

Wang Yu signaled OK with a quick hand gesture. In the next instant, the spectral lens over his right eye flared brilliantly and shattered into motes of raw energy.

Just before it collapsed, the Perfect Fractal reached its maximum resolution. An overwhelming torrent of information flooded Wang Yu's vision, most of it useless. Trees, soil, and the tiniest specks of detritus were analyzed and logged.

But Wang Yu's grand knight reflexes allowed him to find what he was looking for in that instant before it vanished: a faint crimson silhouette inside the mushroom, and the intricate flow of natural magic converging around it...

"There it is. There's a druid's corpse inside that thing. It's powering the mushroom—the skeletal remains are the core of the flow of its natural magic. The fungus feeds its life force into the bones to generate magic, and the bones fuel the mushroom in return."

He relayed his discovery to Avia and Sif. The corruption in the Sorensen Mountains seemed to have been linked to druids from the beginning. There was no avoiding this fight.

"If it's natural magic, then if we get the chance, I can use the words of nature to disrupt its movement temporarily," said Sif, drawing an arrow from her quiver and nocking it to her longbow.

"We need to rip that druid's corpse out of the mushroom. Once that's gone, it'll lose its power," Avia determined.

"Got it. First, we bring it down. Then, we pull out the corpse."

Wang Yu didn't like the feeling of déjà vu this monster gave him, but he knew full well he could handle it.

He lifted his arm, giving Sif a boost. The elf ranger leapt high from his shoulder, loosing an arrow straight at the junction between the mushroom giant's cap and stalk. Meanwhile, Wang Yu charged straight at it.

Avia leapt down from his back as she opened a Gate of Phases. Alchemical metals poured out from the rift, instantly seized by Wang Yu's Chariot.

Like liquid steel, the enchanted alloy flowed over him mid-sprint, hardening into thick, articulated plate.

His size swelled as he encased himself in armor—not to match the giant's height, but rather in strength and weight. At three meters tall, he was still far smaller than the giant mushroom.

Sif's arrow struck true. Green light bloomed across the mushroom's form as glowing vines snaked over its surface, anchoring themselves as they spread.

A subtle force penetrated the creature, disrupting the stream of natural energy that powered it. The giant mushroom staggered, its momentum broken for a heartbeat.

And in that heartbeat, the earth surged. The ground beneath the giant cracked, saturated with magic. A thunderous roar followed as a massive stone fist erupted from below, a colossal hand nearly ten meters tall.

An arm alone dwarfed the mushroom god in size. This was the fifth-tier Seismic Fist—after Avia had crossed the threshold between magician and mage, her power had grown explosively.

The earthen fist crashed into the mushroom giant's side with devastating force, halting its charge and sending its massive form lurching sideways.

Yet that same brutal impact jarred it out of the spell's lingering grip. It roared, thick arms swinging forward in a retaliatory strike at the Seismic Fist. Its punch ripped through the air with a shriek as the pressure of its motion split the wind.

Metal struck stone as Wang Yu, clad in armor plated with comically thick steel, charged atop the great stone hand. Driven by the power of the Chariot, the heavy suit of armor posed no hindrance to his advance.

With breakneck speed, he raced to the palm of the fist of rock. Fighting spirit flared, his muscles tensed, and the Chariot's power surged within the armor. Bracing his feet on the base of one of the stone fingers, he kicked off with explosive force. The impact shattered the stone digit right off.

Like a boulder launched from a catapult, Wang Yu hurtled through the air. He twisted mid-leap, slamming his armored shoulder straight into the incoming punch of the mushroom behemoth. The collision rocked the battlefield.

The armor Wang Yu wore was no ordinary steel. It had been handpicked by Avia herself for sheer density.

The armor was absurdly heavy. If not for the Chariot, Wang Yu would scarcely have been able to move in it, let alone run or leap.

But it was precisely this weight that gave him the confidence to meet brute force with brute force. Imagine punching a lead ball thrice its normal density flying toward you—the outcome would be apparent.

The mushroom man's powerful punch came to an abrupt halt. Twisted out of shape, its knuckles split open, revealing dense, fibrous tissues beneath. The counterforce of its own strike against Wang Yu's mass flattened its hand.

The resulting feedback forced the great mushroom back as its balance crumbled further.

Avia seized the moment. She reshaped Seismic Fist into an open palm that came crashing down atop the creature's head. Magic surged like a flood. With a deafening impact, the spell drove the mushroom face-first into the ground, shaking the earth.

A rain of armor clattered down beside it—Wang Yu's plated suit had burst apart. The Chariot's power had jettisoned the armor, discarding the excessive weight to free itself for another task.

Wang Yu descended onto the felled mushroom, preparing to use the Chariot's might for a far more precise strike.

He sprinted to the spot where the druid's corpse lay buried within the creature. With a sweep of his arm, over twenty fragments of his starsteel blade flew forth, whirling into a spinning ring under the Chariot's control. They carved their way forward with murderous precision.

The high-pitched whine of metal on flesh rang out. The whirling blades, sharpened to a terrifying edge and spinning at impossible speeds, tore through the mushroom's body like a tunnel borer, excavating a perfect cylindrical passage.

"Found you."

The mushroom giant flailed wildly as it writhed in agony. One of its fists smashed through the earthen palm pinning its head.

But it was too late. Wang Yu's spinning blades had drilled more than deep enough to expose a skeleton draped in a nearly disintegrated green robe, wrapped in fungal threads. Antlers crowned the skull—it was a druid.

Wang Yu made a sharp pulling motion. The starsteel fragments returned to him instantly. With a roar, he summoned the full power of the Chariot and tore the remains free from the creature's body.

The moment the corpse was wrenched from the mycelial mass, the mushroom giant froze. Its body fell utterly still—just as Avia had anticipated. Without its core, the giant mushroom couldn't do anything.

Wang Yu hoisted the skeleton above his head, letting Avia and Sif see it from afar.

"Hm?"

As he lifted the druid's remains, something slipped free: a small object fell from the remarkably intact skeleton. With both hands occupied, Wang Yu used the Chariot's grip to catch the item in midair and hold it aloft.

It was a shard of bone, with words etched on its surface.

"Life that is wild and unrestrained shall not perish in calamity."

Wang Yu read it aloud. The writing was in Elvish—clearly, this druid had been a dark elf.

But what did the phrase mean? He frowned, puzzled—but he wouldn't have to wonder for long.

"Wang Yu!" Avia's voice rang out, urgent.

He looked around—and froze. Across the scorched battlefield where they had slain the giant mushroom, where all plant and fungal matter had been burned away, something was bursting forth at terrifying speed. Greenery. It was spreading madly, like wildfire in reverse. Was that... moss?

"...Yeah," Wang Yu muttered, watching it crawl across the earth with alarming hunger. "That's wild alright."